Computer and robot assisted eye surgery has great potential to improve upon eye surgery and to address common problems encountered in many eye surgery tasks. Common problems encountered in the eye surgery context include poor visualization, lack of force sensing, hand tremor, accessibility, etc. Robotic manipulators can provide the needed stability and precision, especially in delicate tasks such as retinal membrane peeling. Micro-force sensors can offer information that is currently not available through conventional means. Additionally, eye surgery would benefit from positional feedback of surgical instruments relative to the eye. However, this information regarding position of surgical instruments relative to the eye is not currently available. Such information can be used to prevent undesirable collisions, improvement of remote center of motion tracking including assessment of surgical skill through analysis of instrument motion, recording of surgical procedures for education and for safety monitoring to ensure the execution of standard protocols, like the administration of a corneal lubricant.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a system for real-time tracking of the eye and the surgical instruments relative to each other and the eye during surgical procedures.